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As a form of digital information literacy, privacy literacy empowers people to protect their own safety and dignity, as well as their freedom to seek information, correspond with whom they choose, and experiment with ideas and self-expression.

The goal of this workshop is to provide librarians with a foundation of knowledge from which to design privacy curricula or services specific to the needs of patrons at their own institutions.

Practically oriented and hands-on, the session will introduce participants to the use of digital privacy tools, but more importantly, will help participants build an understanding of what threats to privacy exist in various scenarios, and how to choose the right tool and strategy (or combination of tools and strategies) for a given scenario.

Learning Outcomes for Participants:-- Be able to explain to patrons, colleagues, and community members how privacy benefits everyone in a free society, including people “with nothing to hide.”-- Understand how surveillance threats -- both digital and analog -- differ according to the gender, race, sexuality, and poverty or occupational status of the surveilled. -- Understand differences between corporate and government mass surveillance, and between mass surveillance and targeted surveillance by either government or individuals. Understand differences in strategy for mitigating each of these types of surveillance.-- Understand how freely available tools (e.g. password managers, tracker blockers, Tor, VPNs, encryption tools like Signal, anti-surveillance search engines and browsers, etc.) can be used to mitigate particular privacy and security risks, and when to recommend each to patrons.-- Understand strategies for mitigating privacy risks when traveling through U.S. border-entry checkpoints.-- Become aware of trusted sources for further learning.

In our discussion of tools and strategies, we will start with low-barrier options that anyone can apply to daily workflows improve privacy and security. Then, we’ll move on to options that people with greater risks may want to consider. For example:-- Scholars and students who may be targeted for harassment due to their academic work, political writing or activities, and/or their racial, sexual, or gender identities.-- Researchers who communicate with members of vulnerable communities via social media or other digital methods are concerned for the safety and anonymity of these communities.-- Researchers and students who need to maintain their own anonymity while conducting digital research.-- People who travel internationally.

The workshop will be taught by Paige Walker, digital collections & preservation librarian at Boston College, who has led privacy workshops for teenagers through Girls Who Code and is completing an MS in Cybersecurity, and Eliza Bettinger, digital humanities librarian at Cornell University, where she has implemented a series of well-received privacy workshops for faculty and students. Both are members of the instruction subcommittee of DLF’s Technologies of Surveillance Interest Group.How can academic librarians support patrons in understanding and mitigating their digital privacy risks? Through discussion, mini-lectures, and hands-on activities, participants will walk away with a stronger practical understanding of how digital surveillance works, and a foundation from which to build privacy-literacy curricula or reference services at their home institutions.